Seymour Myron Hersh

1937 - Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh born on the 8th of April in Chicago, was born into a Jewish family and graduated from the University of Chicago. Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters.

1959 - Began his career in journalism as a police reporter for the City News Bureau. He later became a correspondent for United Press International in South Dakota.

1963 - Went on to become a Chicago and Washington correspondent for the Associated Press.

1968 - Presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

1969 - First gained worldwide recognition for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War.

1970 - Received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

1983 - His book, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House won him the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography.

1985 - Contributed to the PBS television documentary Buying the Bomb.

1986 - His book, The Target is Destroyed (Random House), Hersh alleged that the Soviet attack on Korean Air Flight 007 was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United State intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses and to test the penetration of Soviet sea and air space.

1991 - His book, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies, the foreign editor of the Daily Mirror, had tipped off the Israeli Embassy in London about whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu.

1998 - Strongly criticized the aerial destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan — providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan — by United States aircraft during Bill Clinton's presidency.

2004 - Received the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting given annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. This was his fifth George Polk Award, the first one being a Special Award given to him.

- Published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq.

2005 - Alleged that the USA was conducting covert operations in Iran to identify targets for possible strikes. This was dismissed by both the US government and the Government of Iran.

2006 - He reported on the US military's plans for Iran, which allegedly called for the use of nuclear weapons against that country.

- In the 17th of April issue of The New Yorker, Hersh reported on the Bush Administration's purported plans for an air strike within Iran.